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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27103750">Tonks</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iolaire02/pseuds/Iolaire02'>Iolaire02</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Butterfly Effect: Character Backstories [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Genderfluid Character, I Tried, i have no clue how gender fluidity works, mentions of anorexia, sorry - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 04:53:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27103750</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iolaire02/pseuds/Iolaire02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The next morning, Tonks goes down to breakfast, hair still pink, and he refuses to give a damn what people think.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Butterfly Effect: Character Backstories [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916749</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tonks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As mentioned in the tags, I have no clue what it means to be gender fluid, and it's not something I've ever dealt with even second hand. I don't mean to misrepresent, and if what I've written is offensive or incorrect please feel free to let me know.</p>
<p>This is rated Teen just in case; I'm not sure it actually requires a T.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Tonks is genderfluid, tending towards female. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she feels female, she goes by Dora, but there are days - and they are few and far-between - where a male form and surname are better suited to the precarious emotional state. Dora has lived her entire life trying to live up to other people’s expectations: a shift in appearance here, an attitude change there, a personality trait hidden, a habit or two shoved into the dark recesses of her mind. People want her to become someone she isn’t, and she grows to hate it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a few years in Hogwarts, she locks herself into her base form and does whatever she wants, (the only thing she doesn’t do is shift, no matter that a female body isn’t quite right on certain days) uncaring of what others want for her. By her seventh year, Dora realizes that the people who matter don’t care what she looks like and the ones who care don’t need to be a part of her life. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She gets on the train that September wearing dark makeup with her school robes billowing around her, her hair a brilliant pink that reminds her of a conversation she had long ago. The next morning, Tonks goes down to breakfast, hair still pink, and he refuses to give a damn what people think. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dora spends her seventh year being herself in every way that matters - she looks how she wants to look, and she befriends who she wants to befriend. She applies for Auror training and writes her mum dozens of letters. She sends her dad pictures of herself with pig noses or whiskers or the ears of a wolf, and she refuses to feel ashamed when people look at her strangely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is a gift; they don’t get to judge her for how she uses it when they weren’t the ones to give it to her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She is accepted into the Auror programme, and she passes the NEWTs she takes with flying colors. (She always knew she would.) </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she is six, or maybe seven, Dora falls out of a tree and breaks her arm. That is the week they are staying with her father’s parents, so she is taken to a Muggle doctor who sets her arm in no time, sending her off with a clunky, neon pink cast. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the way out of the hospital, Dora meets a boy several years older than her who is sitting in a chair with round things that make it move - her father tells her later that it is called a wheelchair. The first thing Dora notices about the boy is that he is very, very skinny - she can see his collarbones and his wrist bones, and his cheekbones are concerningly prominent. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She asks him why, and after an awkward moment where her father tells her not to be rude and the boy looks at her in astonishment, the boy - Atticus - tells her that when he looks in the mirror he sees a boy who is overweight, and even though what he’s seeing isn’t what’s actually there, he needs to eat less because the body he sees in the mirror - the one with too much non-existent fat, the one that doesn’t have enough angles - isn’t his. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dora thinks she understands, because sometimes she feels like a boy - but only sometimes, not often enough that she thinks about it, much - and she tells Atticus so. (She doesn’t notice how her dad’s eyes go sharp when she says this, doesn’t notice him step away for a few minutes until he’s suddenly back where he was a moment before.) </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That day, Atticus tells her something that she never forgets. He tells her that she should always be happy with herself, no matter what she sees in the mirror, because sometimes mirrors lie. She learns that she is only as much as she believes she is, that she can only do as much as she thinks she can. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is how, years later, Dora knows she will pass her NEWTs, just like she knows that - one day - she will be a formidable Auror.</span>
</p>
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